As populations grow and more and more vehicles flood the roadways, parking locations have become problematic in terms of scarcity and proximity to desired sites, particularly in urban settings. Likewise, the presence and operation of large amounts of fuel-burning vehicles leads to undesirable increased air pollution levels, particularly in crowded urban settings. Additionally, difficulties in locating parking spaces in such locations generally requires drivers to undertake prolonged searching for such a purpose, thus resulting, with cumulative numbers of such vehicles facing such a necessary experience, in higher pollution levels on average.
As well, the capability of municipalities to afford proper infrastructure for vehicle parking is typically undertaken through metering devices, although such systems require constant monitoring to ensure proper payments have been made to the necessary effect. In tandem, then, there is a growing issue pertaining to the difficulties inherent in the availability and proper revenue generation of sufficient parking places in such urban locations. Parking garages, decks, commuter lots and other secluded parking lots have been constructed in the past to meet a certain degree of drivers' parking demands. However, these structures and areas are generally limited in terms of locations, typically cost a flat fee for entry, regardless of time spent, or, alternatively, require hourly payments of certain high levels that must be paid before egress is permitted, all in a manner to recoup the costs involved with the overall construction, necessitate either human or mechanical intervention to guarantee payments are made, and other machinery to prevent driver egress until payments have been received (such as gate arms, for example). In essence, although such structures and parking areas have proven successful to a certain degree, there remains a need for other alternatives to drivers who do not wish to be beholden to such strictures.
In particular, as alluded to above, street parking, rather than lot parking, has been an attractive alternative to many drivers, specifically as a means to allow for parking in a vicinity closer to a specific target location, reducing individual costs, and increasing freedom of movement through simple ingress and egress from a parallel parking space onto a roadway (as opposed to ingress into and egress from a parking facility that is controlled and requires some type payment prior to leaving). The greatest difficulty such street parking alternatives pose is the typical requirement for a driver to make numerous passes along certain streets to search for a any vacant space, let alone one that is of proper size to allow for such a driver to undertake a parallel parking operation without contacting adjacent vehicles, as well as to allow for sufficient space to facilitate subsequent egress from the target space. As an alternative to controlled parking facilities and areas, then, although street parking may be desirable to drivers, the inherent problems with such an unreliable possibility has made such a parking alternative not only difficult to manage, but also potentially dangerous as drivers take too many chances due to time constraints and/or impatience.
There are actually two different systems provided by municipalities with regard to street parking arrangements: marked spaces and unmarked spaces. Marked configurations provide separated and properly delineated locations for drivers to choose in comparison with unmarked types, for obvious reasons. Such marked spaces inherently provide not only set distances, locations, and metering possibilities for such municipal entities, but also, to the contrary, inefficient overall space usage and limited revenue generation as a result. San Francisco has begun a pilot program utilizing a sensor system to provide notifications to drivers of empty marked spaces as well as a relatively straightforward manner of implementing charging methods to generate revenue directly in relation to marked space usage. Such an overall system, however, is relatively straightforward itself in that notification of such available marked spaces is much easier through specific sensor utilization. As well, correlating such sensor technology to a metering system that permits indications of parking initiation and ultimately parking space evacuation merely requires indications of sensor operation in the limited areas of such marked locations. In other words, the implementation of a notification/metering system limited to specific delineated parking spaces involves mere sensor activation and deactivation specifically for the sensors present within the area related directly to the marked spaces themselves. Unfortunately, as alluded to above, such marked space usage is rather inefficient, particularly in terms of allowing for various vehicle sizes (i.e., compact vehicles may fit easily within a space whereas a moving van will require far more space, and thus, in certain municipalities may not be permitted to park on a street). The capability of avoiding such inefficiencies with available on-street parking spaces while also according a reliable method of notifying drivers of vacant space of suitable size for specific types of vehicles would not only allow for reduction of necessary paint or other indication materials for marked spaces, but also would permit more efficient space usage and, overall, a reduction in pollution through allowing drivers a more direct route to a possible parking space. Additionally, the capability of implementing a suitable metering and charging method in relation to such an unmarked parking space system would allow, ultimately, to effective and more efficient revenue generation as the amount of available parking spaces would be increased through the omission of demarcations. To date, however, such has not been accorded by the on-street parking industry.
Controlled parking environments (such as lots and garages at public events, airports, stadiums, commuter lots, office buildings or other large parking areas) have been developed with certain marked space notifications in the past, although even these methods have proven problematic and time-consuming to a certain degree due to the difficulties in identifying available parking space locations, particularly in lots that are partially filled or almost filled to capacity. Such parking facilities, however, have, at least in some circumstances, been outfitted with either manual counting means or sensor devices to provide indications to drivers in various ways as to vacant spaces, both in terms of number and, at times, locations. Such notification operations, however, are limited in their scope to such location and number issues; since each parking space present within the confines of outfitted parking facilities are pre-sized and provided specifically for vehicles of various sizes, and, as such, the facilities themselves are configured to compensate for specific numbers of spaces properly aligned for such vehicles to park appropriately in side-by-side relation (and to allow ingress and egress from such spaces easily as result), such monitoring and consequent notification of availability and location is relatively simple and straightforward. Likewise, there is no need nor concern with providing any notification basis with regard to parking availability for vehicles that are parked end-to-end instead in such situations as the overall lot design generally includes such side-by-side arrangements (with limited possibilities of different space sizes based on the potential for smaller or larger vehicles that may be present). In any event, these prior parking lot notification schemes have basically pertained to set parking designations with specific parking configurations that are relatively easy to monitor as to vacancies and locations as a result. To the contrary, street parking, particularly such parking omitting any space demarcations, is highly erratic in principle since end-to-end, parallel parking requirements depend almost entirely on varied vehicle lengths and proper placement of such vehicles without any set configurations in place. Marked on-street parking spaces at least provide specific locations for drivers to select; again, though, such marked spaces are rather inefficient through limiting the amount of available spaces to too great a degree. For instance, with a standard block in New York City is ⅛th of a mile, or 660 feet in length. With set spaces of 23 feet (with one foot between each marked space), roughly 27 standard vehicles may be parked (theoretically, as driveways, hydrants, and set distances from intersections would invariably limit such numbers to a smaller number, in actuality). The utilization of unmarked systems would thus increase the amount of available space by at least six (20 feet per vehicle instead of set 24 feet distances). Additionally, and as noted above, set limits of 23 feet (with another foot set between each space) would consequently limit the type of vehicle that may actual park within such set spaces. Unlined spaces would thus allow, again, for all types and sizes of vehicles to utilize such on-street possibilities. As such, a greater efficiency for on-street parking would be realized if marked spaces were not implemented for these reasons.
Even with unrestrained on-street parking being the norm, other considerations may impact the overall capability of such a system. For instance, numerous items that prevent certain parking locations (such as fire hydrants, driveways, and the like) exist that may cause difficulties for a driver to properly find and select a parking spot. Additionally, the chaotic state of filling up limited spaces in end-to-end arrangements, particularly with, again, myriad lengths of vehicles (from small sub-compact vehicles to large trucks, vans, and/or buses, for example) makes predictability for a driver as to the proper space size for his or her vehicle rather daunting, beyond the initial consideration of whether any space is available to being with. In other words, in comparison with set parking lot configurations, the availability of spaces present on city streets is, suffice it to say, a difficult issue for a driver to overcome, particularly in terms of finding a suitable (and legal) space in a desirable location. In those situations, the longer a driver continues to seek for an available on-street parking space, the more fuel is consumed, the greater pollution is generated, and the more time lost for the driver in terms of his or her own efficiencies. With large numbers of vehicles searching for open spaces on a daily basis, the greater the accumulative effect such fuel consumption, undesirable exhaust, and lost time issues create.
Additionally, in terms of street parking issues, notifications are not easy to provide beyond the fact that end-to-end parking presents an extremely difficult prediction capability (due to the fact that vehicles do not have static lengths, not to mention the fact that other obstacles, such as fire hydrants, etc., may be present, as noted above) and the manner of providing such notifications, if they are provided in that context, would not be provided through, for example, typical board displays or other types of updated signage in a set location (such as is generally employed within parking facilities). The breadth of the street parking area in question would be too great to permit such a display to have any effect, basically, as the entirety of the area at issue would require street-by-street notifications to drivers in order to provide up-to-date and reliable information. As it is, a single, or perhaps two, three, or four, signs strategically placed in the multi-street area in question would require a driver to pass by, read, and comprehend the information provided in order to allow for such an on-street notification system to be effective. In essence, although street by street notifications may be effective in on-street parking configurations, the same has not been found true for typical signage utilized for parking lot situations.
As well, street metering requires investment in technology that requires expenditures for purchase, implementation, upkeep, and constant monitoring to be effective. As a revenue stream, such a system is rather straightforward (as discussed above) for set parking spaces (and thus set sensors with specific activation and deactivation sequences in relation to the presence of a vehicle in the target space). For unmarked spaces, to the contrary, such a needed overall system is, for lack of a better word, nonexistent. Without set spaces, it is difficult to have metering devices devoted to specific spaces (not to mention, individual meters are rather expensive to implement, operate, and monitor). Even with meters with marked spaces, such systems are rather cumbersome and unreliable (drivers do not always pay into the device, and thus an attendant must constantly monitor such areas for proper utilization; furthermore, limited time periods available to a driver for coin or other currency input would require repeated visits to the parking location to avoid incurring parking violations) and, as discussed at great length, inefficient in terms of available spaces and thus overall available numbers of vehicles that may be present within such spaces at any one time; optimizing and maximizing space availability and correlating such to revenue generating capacity would be far more attractive, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, the capability of effectively charging drivers for unmarked street parking is limited to honor systems (for instance, requiring drivers to pay into permanent structures located on the street itself, and receiving a dashboard ticket for display during parking) as well as constant monitoring to ensure payment has been made for such a benefit. Avoidance of such cumbersome and relatively expensive requirements, in addition to the ability to provide effective and reliable notification to drivers of available and suitably sized spaces within an unmarked on-street parking configuration, has simply not been a possibility.